RU? Instant Reaction Review Podcast Ep. 114 – Lucy Review

Podcast Lucy Review

I think it’s safe to say that we’re both fans of Scarlett Johansson, and huge fans of all things that enter the sci-fi realm, so we went into Lucy, perhaps a little nervous, but with high hopes. Moreover, even if not everything Luc Besson puts out wins us over, even when he isn’t great, he’s not great in fun and interesting ways.

Unfortunately, we didn’t really get what we were after here, despite the fact that it started out pretty solid. It’s probably just the danger you’re in when you have a writer/director who likes to spin things in different directions, and has a special fondness for fairly wacky elements of filmcraft. Sometimes, it just doesn’t work out.

We still had to like Johansson, at least to some degree, even though her character moves toward something that almost pushes you away. Of course, this left us discussing the comparisons to Johnny Depp’s Transcendence, and the pitfalls of trying to play “robotic,” and charismatic at the same time. It’s a nearly impossible task, and pretty much requires an actor/actress that people want to watch anyway (hence the two people involved in these two films), and however well it may be managed, it’s going to be rough. Acting blank and detached just doesn’t suck you into a film, or a story.

There were things to like about the film, and I was on board for about the first third of the adventure, but this ultimately feels like a movie that was given the green light after nothing more than a half-hearted brain storm, leaving Besson scrambling to figure out how it ends. That’s probably not the case, of course, but that’s what it feels like.

In the end, this is one to skip really, unless you’re a Johansson or Besson completist.

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Lucy Review

Marc Eastman is the owner and operator of Are You Screening? and has been writing film reviews for over a decade, and several branches of the internet's film review world have seen his name. He is also a member of The Broadcast Film Critics Association and The Broadcast Television Journalists Association.